User devices such as mobile communication devices often include touch sensitive input systems such as touch screens or touch displays. Touch screens are often formed as a resistive or capacitive film layer located on or adjacent to the display, which is used to sense contact of the screen by an object such as a user's finger, a stylus or a similar entity.
Touch screens often display a keypad or other content such as a webpage while simultaneously allowing the user to manipulate the content or properties of the display by touching the screen. For example, some devices with a touch screen allow the user to input information/data, in the form of text characters or numbers, via a virtual keyboard or other type of keypad displayed on the touch screen.
One issue that arises is that touch screens are found on a number of mobile devices and are therefore comparatively small. This results in keys of a keyboard or keypad being displayed relatively small and relatively close together.
One manner of overcoming these difficulties has been suggested in US patent application US2010/0026723. As well as a touch screen to detect input from an object on the surface thereof, the proximity of the user's finger is taken into account such that a graphical controller can magnify the visual content that is displayed on the touch screen at an approximate location beneath the finger. This is performed based on the user's finger breaking a grid of light beams located at a set distance away from the touch screen. When the grid is broken a graphical controller displays a zoomed portion of the display content beneath the user's finger on the touch screen. This allows characters on a keyboard beneath a user's finger to be enlarged as the user is moving to press a key.
Such methods/apparatus for controlling zoom based upon proximity to the screen suffer from being difficult or frustrating to use. It is an aim of the embodiments of the present invention to provide an improved method and apparatus for operating a touch screen device based on the proximity of the user's finger, or whatever object is used to provide input.